Libertarians coming to the conclusion that it may not be just government that's the problem but government capture by large firms and oligarchs — a conclusion that left libertarians came to some time ago.
Zero Hedge
Peter Thiel Blasts: The American Political System Is "Not A Democracy Or Constitutional Republic"
Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog
7 comments:
Let the left libertarians take over and they would probably work to balance the budget even more zealously....
The main problem is libertarianism itself....
There is no "natural" rate of interest nor is there a "natural" state of justice. ..
Justice is imposed via authority.
If it weren't for the current rampant out of control libertarianism, we would have a better chance at achieving socio-economic justice.
Theil is logically conflicted here... you can't say "Im a libertarian!" and "I seek justice" at the same time...
you can't say "Im a libertarian!" and "I seek justice" at the same time...
Unless you are a left libertarian that recognizes individual freedom implies social justice and responsibility if all are to be free.
A fundamental principle of left libertarianism is that none can truly be free unless all are free.
This require popular participatory democracy, distributed prosperity, sanctity of the commons over sanctity of contract, universal rights, etc.,
The opposite of liberty is authority, The excess of freedom is anarchy and the excess of authority is authoritarianism.
The extremes of the range of governance are freedom v. law & order. Good governance balances them in a good society.
The enduring questions here revolve around the meaning of "right," "good," and other normative terms.
There is no difficulty with this in a monolithic and homogenous society but there is conflict of it in a pluralistic and heterogenous society.
The authoritarian solution is to impose uniformity, while the libertarian solution is accommodating diversity.
As I see it, the issue is not biased only in one direction. The US as a pluralistic and heterogenous society has to harmonize those who chiefly favor law & order, that is, traditional conservatives, and those who chiefly favor individual liberty, that is, traditional liberals.
Well Tom, I'd ask a "law and order" conservative: How come you flaunt and do not enforce the Humphrey Hawkins Full Employment Act?
To not enforce that law is pure lawlessness and anti-authority imo....
Rsp
Because the law is for 'little people" that can't afford to buy an exception.
The insinuation that libertarians are JUST NOW coming to the realization that business has captured the government is just another of your endless misrepresentations. This has ALWAYS been the foundation of libertarian historical analysis which has always been: The giant regulatory state proposed and supported by “progressives” will invariably be captured by big business, the political elite, Hitler and/or Stalin. I have owned “The Triumph of Conservatism” by Gabriel Kolko since 1973:
The stage thus set by the failure of the merger movement, Kolko moves on to the myth that Progressive Era reforms were uniformly or even predominantly opposed by their affected industries. The key is to realize that, economic strategies like corporate consolidation having failed, companies turned to political strategies to freeze the status quo or to gain new competitive advantages. As Kolko states, "the essential purpose and goal of any measure of importance in the Progressive Era was not merely endorsed by key representatives of businesses involved; rather such bills were first proposed by them." Food companies, for example, wanted the Food and Drug Act so that they could turn its regulations against their competitors (e.g., oleo versus butter). Big meat packers desired to save their industry from tainted meat, which hurt business, but were unable to ensure the quality of small packers' meat and unwilling to pay for independent meat inspection--so they themselves initiated the meat inspection movement, lobbied for and won passage of the Meat Inspection Act, thereby forcing inspection onto the industry and its costs onto the federal government. As for the Federal Reserve Act, it was the product of a banking reform movement "initiated and sustained" by big bankers who sought to protect themselves from small bank competition. The Clayton Antitrust Act and the Federal Reserve Act? Most businessmen supported them to better protect themselves from antitrust prosecution under the Sherman Act's vague provisions or (among smaller businesses) to gain such advantages as enforced "fair trade price-fixing." Thus, Kolko shows that whether for protection from competition or from the government, businesses themselves initiated or shaped these Progressive Era reforms and others that most Americans regard as being part of an anti-business (or at least not pro-business) reform movement.
This book will fascinate students of American business and reform history. Ironically, given Kolko's philosophical disposition, even ardent pro-capitalists should relish it. That audience will likely be reminded of Burton W. Folsom's distinction, in his eye-opening *Myth of the Robber Barons*, between "market entrepreneurs" and "political entrepreneurs." Dominick Armentano's *Antitrust and Monopoly: Anatomy of a Policy Failure*, a work of heavier scholarship, may also be recalled to mind. His thesis that antitrust laws, even when not passed unequivocally to benefit special business interests, have "solved" nonexistent problems (and caused a few real ones) and should be repealed is entirely confirmed by Kolko's *Triumph of Conservatism*, which Armentano even cites in support (in addition to another of Kolko's works, on railroad regulations).
http://tinyurl.com/qc6g3no
The primary libertarian objections to MMT are:
1. MMTers’ failure to recognize the price signal distortions of fiat money; and
2. MMTers’ naïve belief that THEY can and will capture and control the system of wealth and purchasing power transfer inherent in the fiat money system (which is the raison d’etre of MMT). Libertarians believe that such a system has been captured and will always be captured by an evil business elite.
We understand this completely. You guys are the naïve and oblivious ones.
The insinuation that libertarians are JUST NOW coming to the realization that business has captured the government is just another of your endless misrepresentations. This has ALWAYS been the foundation of libertarian historical analysis which has always been: The giant regulatory state proposed and supported by “progressives” will invariably be captured by big business, the political elite, Hitler and/or Stalin.
History seems to show that this is true, and I did not mean to contest that. What I meant was that the solution of Libertarianism (as well as left anarchism) is getting rid of the state, that is, government. One view, that of "limited government" is that "government is the problem," so get rid of "big" government ("drown it in the bath tub"). The more extreme view is to get rid of all hierarchical government and optimal decentralized governance will arise if only some simple rule like the non-agression principle is instituted.
The objection is that this doesn't prevent oligarchy based on plutonomy in that it depends on the institution of a laissez-faire market with perfect competition in which there are no institutions to capture because a large and developed society has a very intricate institutional structure that doesn't arise spontaneously. It would not disappear spontaneously even if the state and state institutions were abolished, let alone the size of government limited but the same principles of governance retained, e.g., the constitution, or constitutions or non-federal states. In a capitalist system the institutions that allow and even encourage accumulation of wealth and power through ownership would still be in place, with the predictable result.
There are two major issues operative. The first is what good governance that ensures maximal individual freedom and also preserves the level of law & order necessary to a functional society would look like. The second is how to get from here to there, especially in the case of major change.
So far I don't find any of the alternatives proposed by left or right convincing.
The enduring question initially debated by the ancient Greeks remains, what is the good life in a good society? There have been a number of attempts at answering it, but none have managed to prevail successfully. Moreover, while the question is stated in universal terms, the response is necessarily contextual, e.g., historically.
Context adds a twist now that the world is shrinking owing to communication and transportation technology. Different cultures and civilizations are interacting more closely, sometimes with positive result from cooperation, but often with negative results leading to conflict. Then there are also the historical context of imperialism and colonialism shaping the present and future.
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continuation
Response to the enduring questions of the West now need to be rethought in terms of globalization, that is, without assuming that the Western mindset is either universal, e.g., as representative of human nature, or even superior to all others, e.g., owing to technological progress.
But the practical question for proposals a system overhaul rather than just reform or tweaking is what kind of system is optimal for human beings at the level of present development and how to get there from here.
My own view is that this is a dialectical process that is working itself out historically, e.g. between might and right, between tradition and experiment, between liberty and law & order, etc. Progress results from the interaction of experiment and tradition, that is, growth is the outcome of stability and adaptability.
The lessons of history are there guiding us from the past, everyone in the present that wishes to join the debate has something to contribute if only to show how at least some aspects of that way of thinking are ill-conceived.
Unfortunately, the historical record is an experiment of rigidities conflicting on the battlefield of history with the stronger winning — but only for a while, until its shortcomings become its Achilles heel and pressure for fresh solutions carries change forward.
Libertarianism has ideas to contribute to the debate, but taken as a category, in which I include Rand's Objectivism, for example, it's too simplistic and utopian.
The left libertarians, on the other hand, fall into three categories, the compromisers with capitalism, the socialists, which includes most Marxists, and the anarchists favoring extreme decentralization and consensualism, which is where left and right libertarianism meet at the extreme. Most of the responses from this side are also utopian and not really well thought out either.
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